Mystery ~ MV1

022. Listen to your Gut

[Mad Max]

The car engine growls beneath us, a mechanical beast whose hunger mirrors the fear clawing my insides- tearing at the inside of my throat.

I throw the vehicle into reverse with enough force I thought I heard a snap, tires screaming against asphalt like wounded animals.

Sydney's presence beside me has distorted—no longer the enigmatic guardian of moments ago, but something fragile, something mortal. Streetlights paint her in fractured tableaus: one moment golden and luminous like an angel ascending, the next submerged in shadow that deepens the hollows beneath her cheekbones, accentuating the pain she battles to conceal.

"Hospital Syd," I promise, the word hanging between us like a talisman against the darkness flooding the car. "We'll be there soon, just hold—"

"No hospitals." Her voice, usually a symphony of controlled power, now fractures at the edges, each syllable a labored exhalation against the suffocating night. Still, there's steel beneath the pain—the unmistakable command of someone accustomed to being obeyed. Her tone leaves no room for an argument but still, I shake my head before turning to glance at her- wondering what the hell she's thinking right now.

"You're kidding." Disbelief colors my words as I watch crimson bloom beneath her fingers, spreading across the midnight fabric of her dress like spilled wine. "What's your better idea?"

The silence stretches between us, punctuated only by her shallow breaths. Instead of answering, I glance again to see how she studies the street signs through eyes that struggle to focus, pain and blood loss battling her consciousness for dominance. She lifts her chin, her eyes harden as if she's trying to deny pain the pleasure of being able to affect her.

"Take a left here." She tells me and I follow her path. Each direction comes as a whispered secret, fragments of a map leading us deeper into a labyrinth of shadows- I'm just hoping for a light at the end of it all.

Her free hand lies between us on the console, pale fingers stained with liquid rubies. I move before I can think. And when I take it in mine, her skin feels like winter marble despite the warm blood coating her fingertips. Her pulse flutters against my thumb—a delicate, erratic percussion that terrifies me more than the blood itself.

"Hold on," I whisper, squeezing her hand as if I could anchor her to this world through touch alone. "We're almost there."

"I'm scared." The confession escapes her lips like morning mist, so quiet I might have imagined it. The vulnerability in those two words shatters something fundamental within me. It didn't sound like something I was meant to hear, not from her. It was so soft and delicate that it felt unnatural and wrong- like a beautifully carved stone giving into the weather when it was thought to last through storms.

I clearly didn't know Sydney as well as I thought. But even I could tell this was wrong, to hear such a confession from her.

Her head leans against the headrest, eyes fluttering closed for one heart-stopping moment before they struggle open again.

"Hey." My voice shakes and I release her hand only to grasp her wrist, my thumb pressing against the spot where her life beats against fragile skin. The rhythm comes faster now, shallower—a countdown I refuse to acknowledge as my foot presses the pedal flat against the floorboard.

"Stay with me, Syd." My voice sounds foreign even to my own ears, clawed raw and fractured. "Talk to me."

"About what?" she manages, a ghost of a frown touching her lips before pain erases it and gets painted into a twisted expression.